Why women aren’t safe on the internet

Maybe I sound exasperated. I am. I cannot believe it is 2014, and threats against women are still treated as fundamentally unserious. Here’s why: One in five U.S. women has been raped in her lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in six has been stalked. One in four women has experienced violence from a domestic partner. When women are murdered, two times out of five, the culprit is an intimate partner, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Domestic violence is a leading cause of death for pregnant women, the CDC warns. So it’s in our best interest to take threats seriously, even when they’re coming from internet strangers, because we know women to be at extremely high risk for violence at the hands of men.

Threats make the internet unsafe for me, and for Emma Watson, and for a lot of other women, too. Ask Anita Sarkeesian. Ask Kathy Sierra. Ask Catherine Mayer, Lindy West, or Alyssa Royce. This isn’t even an exhaustive list, it’s just the first women that came to mind, because the sick thing is that this never stops. And honestly, if we – all of us – don’t make it stop, it never will.

The treatment of women on the internet will remain a topic on OSNews until the problem is resolved, or the day I die – whichever comes first. I know from previous stories that many OSNews commenters would rather not face the harsh reality of the systematic mistreatment of women online – I have been disgusted with some of the comments posted – but those people can hit that little ‘close tab’ button and leave, because I don’t want them here.

This. If we accept a so-called “rape culture” as the norm, we may as well go back to swinging from trees and flinging poop at each other. Just because rape is a human flaw does not mean it’s a human right. Anyone who would take the position that it is, needs their head examined. We’ve evolved and advanced to the point where pretty much all of us know and accept that rape and violence towards other people (male or female) is wrong. We write and enforce laws against it because we know it’s wrong.

And yet there persists a base desire among a few of us to perpetuate this violence and aggression, behind the mask of anonymity. That’s something I’ll never understand no matter how much I dwell on it. I’m a huge believer in the right to privacy and anonymity, and I accept that it allows some people to spout hate and hurtful words, because the net result is that we all get the privacy we deserve as a basic human right. But the thought that some people go out of their way to harm others, whether physically, emotionally, or psychologically, boggles the mind. How do you stop something like that without doing even greater harm in the process? That is the question that really needs to be answered before we can continue to evolve as a peaceful species.

And there, in a single quote, is the problem. If you believe people just have a “right” to harm each other, because they are human, no, nothing is going to change.

If, on the other hand, you believe some things are just wrong, and need to be changed, and we should never stop trying, we might actually have some hope of improving ourselves as a species.

I think you’re missing the point here. If Thom had posted and said, ‘I HATE spam and I’m going to keep posting about it until the day I die, until/unless it goes away’, most of us would’ve reacted the same way.

And it is NOT because we condone the behavior or think that people have a right to harass others in this manner. It’s just that there aren’t any permanent solutions to this problem unless you want to fundamentally change the way in which the Internet works.

And it’s particularly disgusting that Thom would use this website as his personal/political soap box. He does it all the time, but this is on a whole different level.

The unbelievable comments and replies Thom has gotten on this article demonstrate he was absolutely right to post it.

What about OS News attracts such an unreconstructed bunch of misogynistic fuckheads? We, as a tech community, regularly condone threats and generally act like bro-douche twats far too frequently. This must stop.

Are men abused and threatened on the Internet? Sure. Are men raped? Sometimes. But nowhere _near_ the rate at which women are abused and threatened and raped. And Thom is right to keep using his corner of the blogosphere and the platform it provides to talk about these issues.

You are asking to the human race to change and that will not gonna happen.

The past couple of centuries have clearly demonstrated the incredible capacity of human society to change – look at issues of slavery, poverty, race, religion, environmentalism, women’s rights, and even war.

Humans are flexible creatures, and human society is equally capable of changing.

All that needs to be done is to make it socially disadvantageous to be comfortable with expressions or attitudes of violence towards women.

It really isn’t that tall of an order – it just takes time, and it is happening before our eyes.

To repeat your statement:

You are asking to the human race to change and that will not gonna happen.

This just seems to me that you don’t think it is important enough to try to actually accomplish change.

The past couple of centuries have clearly demonstrated the incredible capacity of human society to change – look at issues of slavery, poverty, race, religion, environmentalism, women’s rights, and even war.

Oh really? Slavery got pushed underground, but it is still very much alive. Poverty? Still global problem (it might not seem this way from you cushy western life). Race? Still a problem. Religion -people are still killing each other in name of religion with great enthusiasm. Environmentalism? Well, that’s a new thing. Women’s rights – just talk to any feminist and you will hear how horribly oppressed they are. War – they are multiple wars being fought at this moment.

In other words – no, all fundamental problems from hundreds of years ago are still there and not going anyway.

I heard on twitter that gender is now a choice. Women can just switch to being a man when they go shopping at Walmart. It would solve the 100% positive outcome 1 in 3 chance of being raped when going outside.

If these SJWs want to stop getting boxed turds in their mailbox, then they should stop acting like Fred Phelps. The more they do their stupid act, the more attention they’ll get from the other bad crowd.

Women being hurt is being taken seriously, it’s what is being trumpeted on a near-daily basis, as you’ve just pointed out. But this a disappointing article, another one to only sensationalise half the story which moves from “How do we stop violence?” to “How do we protect women?”. Apparently, half the problem doesn’t matter and men don’t count.

This isn’t the Titanic, we don’t need to kick men off the lifeboats for room, and articles like this not only fail to serve everyone who is being hurt, but it also divides the community and takes the eyes off the problem. Just because you can’t name the men who have been hurt doesn’t mean they haven’t, and it only illustrates how little support they really have.

The most feminist article that can be written is one where gender isnâ€™t mentioned at all; where the genders are being treated equally. Developers are getting hurt, people are being threatened, communities need support – why do we not look at that? Even Emma Watson – who was targeted recently – points out that we haven’t come close to unifying our efforts because we’re so busy villainizing men.

And I know for a fact that men have been just as badly harassed as women; the immature, disgraceful, uncalled for behaviour may vary, but it’s all bad behaviour: the idiots who threaten to rape women are the same idiots threatening to kill men. The problem isn’t protecting women, it’s stopping the violence before it gets out-of-hand in the first place. Regretfully, there’s just no easy solution, but we should at least figure out the problem first.

My feelings exactly. I don’t think people understand that if you are collectively targeting a group *for effect* people in that group are going to take it personally and thus, react with anger. It doesn’t matter if you are a gamer, man or whatever. It is natural to respond to a claim that “YOU are part of the problem” with “no, I’m not! I don’t agree to any of this nor have I ever mistreated X in the matter suggested!”

I bet some people wants to claim that I close my eyes to the problem and I’m really a sexist pig.

Well, I’m not! I have been a women rights supporter all my life. But there is a tone I don’t like in this debate. It’s not that some people like to point finger and claim alarmist crap (people has always done that), it’s that a lot of people just white-knighting to these peoples defence. Just because you want to stop something terrible, it doesn’t mean that you got your facts straight, your numbers right nor has reached the correct conclusion.

When a person is accused of rape, it’s a natural reaction nowadays to assume that the victim is right and that the accusee is really a rapist. The correct response being “we don’t really know yet” is put aside. This is because MOST MEN do get it. We do live in a sexist society where women are treated less well as men; in some cases a lot worse. But this has also turned into a mantra where any claim like “a women is raped every 15 seconds” is simply taken as fact with no research done. If it doesn’t sound too stupid but horrible enough, we are going to treat is as true.

And the result? People are going to assume that the guy accused of rape did it. And when the police or legal system doesn’t put him away for a long time, for whatever reason, there is going to be an outcry. Proof in this case is only good if it serves the rape victim. If it’s the other way around, let’s just find a tree and hang the bastard already.

Who the hell to we help by making up stuff in order to make things sound even worse than it is?

Most men aren’t sexist pigs. A lot have some habits of mind and conduct that is part of a sexist society. Most of them simply doesn’t see that as sexist because they are not educated to see the patterns. So we help these people being better people by pointing them out, ask them to reflect upon it and let time and rational reasoning do the rest (it takes time, but all good revolutions do take time). The current tactic of pointing fingers like a priest and shount “REPENT!!” is simply not working. On the contrary, it makes people less inclined to listen, to shut themself up and draw the conclusion that this is all an man-hating conspiracy by feminist social warriors.

One in five women was raped and one in six stalked? There is something wrong with those stats, the number of stalking cases should be way bigger than rapes. Either the ‘rape’ definition is wrong or the ‘stalk’, most likely the first.

Women can get raped without any stalking involved, they’re not related. Many women get raped by their husbands or boyfriends, or relatives, for example, and there is no stalking needed in any of those cases.

100% agree. I know several women that were raped by men they loved. There are too many people out there that think being in a relationship with someone gives you the right to have sex with them even if they don’t want to. Rape is still rape whether it is a stranger doing it or a spouse.

I would also have thought there were more cases of stalking than rape, especially if you include the Internet.

Stalking is typically long term, by one individual targeting another. A stalker can stalk for years, and will stalk just that one person. In that same years, a serial rapist can make dozens of victims. Also, most rape occurs within relationships. Stalking, by definition, doesn’t. So I’m not at all surprised.

Clearly violence against any humans is a huge problem, but I don’t see the point of the guilting tone of these articles. Anyone here into rape or would tolerate it if they were an observer? I’m going to guess no.

And if there was, they certainly wouldn’t be impressed by an article about the problem.

So what exactly is the point? Raise it as an issue? Ok, but you’re preaching to the choir here. The article itself does exactly nothing to solve the problem. In fact I have yet to see a single concrete suggestion of how to actually address this situation apart from clearly ineffective stern finger wagging at the perpetrators.

Where are the actual ideas instead of useless admonishment and self-important grandstanding about how you don’t tolerate this kind of behaviour?

A real name requirement for the internet might actually help this issue, but I am going to guess that many of the same people that are upset about abuse are the ones that are against decreased privacy.

A real name requirement for the internet might actually help this issue, but I am going to guess that many of the same people that are upset about abuse are the ones that are against decreased privacy.

EXACTLY. Thom and his ilk act like just because the rest of us aren’t on rooftops screaming about this problem, that we somehow condone the behavior. I mean, what the f–k does he want us to do about it? Sprinkle magic fairy dust on the interwebs to make the lamers go away? I assure you, if that worked, many of us would have done it a couple of decades ago. The same goes for spam as well.

IMO, the only REAL way to solve this problem is to end anonymity on the Internet, and make everything people post have their real name attached. Is that really what you want? Because I’m kind of okay with that solution. I don’t need to be anonymous THAT badly. But as long as anonymity exists, people are going to be jackasses. That’s just the way the world works.

I think we’ve seen enough of the wonders of Google+ and YouTube comments to see that “real names” aren’t enough to stop people being shits. Frankly even the harassment people get from Twitter is frequently from what appear to be legitimate accounts.

It also removes one of the key (sadly needed) mitigations of harassment i.e. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”

As someone that plays some League of Legends and sees how quickly people can lock onto something “different” about other people, and use that to spew random venom (French, African, Jewish, fat, gay, nerd, mentally disabled etc) when you include a real identity you give these trolls real tools to throw actively targeted venom, making it significantly worse and allowing for further harassment outside the game.

I think we’ve seen enough of the wonders of Google+ and YouTube comments to see that “real names” aren’t enough to stop people being shits. Frankly even the harassment people get from Twitter is frequently from what appear to be legitimate accounts.

So people are making rape and death threats against women with their real names attached?

I’m saying that random anonymous death threats haven’t been solved even in the centuries old communications world of the telephone and postal service, that is significantly more centralised and controllable than the Internet is.

So while you would fail to solve the anonymous death threat problem, you would open up millions of men and women to bullying based on personal information available about them, none of which would be enough of a public figure to get an article in The Verge, or have the FBI involved.

I’m saying that random anonymous death threats haven’t been solved even in the centuries old communications world of the telephone and postal service, that is significantly more centralised and controllable than the Internet is.

Right, that’s why I’m saying you would have to fundamentally change how the Internet works, such that EVERYTHING you post online has your real name attached.

Other than that, do you have any better ideas, other than just telling men not to rape?

Twitter knows the IP address and the time of the threat posted. With the police and ISPs help that can be used to work out which house the threat came from.

But what about proxies? That puts you in the same boat as with telephones and letters, if someone is going to go to a decent level of effort to hide their activities, when you start talking about giving the 2 billion+ users of the Internet their own individual identities, I can promise you that it won’t take long for a black market trade of compromised identities that you can use. Just like with SSNs. And with Korea’s Citizen’s Registration Numbers.

My main problem with it still stands that while it will help to protect celebrities (like all of the names listed), where the police will actually do something to help, regular people will instead find themselves subjected to more bullying because they have no way of masking their own identity if they choose to comment or talk about something sensitive.

Twitter knows the IP address and the time of the threat posted. With the police and ISPs help that can be used to work out which house the threat came from.

As we already know from all the piracy suits, an ip address != a person. The current Internet is just not equipped to go after people in such a manner.

if someone is going to go to a decent level of effort to hide their activities

In which case you run into the same problem as I mentioned above. Obviously, the entire infrastructure would have to be overhauled to make spoofing a lot harder, and something that probably wouldn’t be attempted by anyone but criminals who are trying to make money from their illegal activities. This would, of course, end anonymity on the Internet. But hey, if you want to put a stop to death threats, spam, malware, etc, you’re going to have to sanitize the whole damn thing, and basically where you dare not say anything offensive that has the possibility to come back to you. You know, kind of like how it is on Facebook, with your mom and other relatives on your friends list.

Is that really what we want? Is it worth the trade-off of women not getting harassed online anymore? It is interesting that all kinds of bullshit has been happening online for about two decades, and everyone just went along with it, until women started complaining. Then all of a sudden we have a bunch of white nights crying foul, and demanding that we do something about the scum and villainy on the Internet, when nobody really gave two shits when it was just a bunch of nerds being harassed.

As we already know from all the piracy suits, an ip address != a person. The current Internet is just not equipped to go after people in such a manner.

But at least the MPAA/RIAA demonstrates with a bit of effort you actually can take these things to court and get a conviction. (agree or not with their methods)

Meanwhile we’re not seeing what looks like the same effort to protect a copy of “Bills, Bills, Bills” from piracy than from the police for these death threats.

So the tone of this article, and the real name suggestion, sound like we’re all out of ideas, and the only remaining options are implementing crazily draconian plans. Meanwhile it appears to be more an issue of “uh police, have you tried prosecuting them?”

They were pretty damn fast at roping in a Dutch girl who tweets a bomb threat to American Airlines under a fake name, because in that instance some agency actually gave a shit.

Yes. Teach everybody from early on that the Internet is NOT a save place. All you do, all you write, all you upload there is, even when not supposed to be, read/stored/usedAgainstYou. By potentially anybody including serialkillers, massmurders and psychos and in any case by organizations making lot $ to turn you info a profile with lots data attached for anybody to buy.

The internet is NOT a save place and never will be. Teach that.

That means you need anonymity. Forcing real name usage is the worst you can do to make the internet more dangerous. Force anonymity to improve security.

I think the women are just more complaining while man deal differently with it. Men feel often less attacked and fire back and sometimes enjoy the slug.

We live in a world with parking lots for women (They are close to doors and to exits with camera surveilance) and women ruling over a country and men doing housework.

Even if you look at these parts where especially women have no rights, the men do not fare any better. They tend to get killed or crippled in fights with other tribes (Well… some call themselves “Countries”).

What you are trying to fight Thom, that does not exist. This is just a endless list of complaining and nagging.

Yeah but there is this guy who got yelled at by a woman once so all the systematic harassment and abuse women receive in this world – religious extremist, systematically lower wages, rape, sexual abuse – is all good.

The internet is a wonderful but also sometimes nasty place. Right now checkout #GamerGate – one site that covers more of the attempted censorship is http://gamergate.giz.moe/

Maybe we should ask Zoe Quinn.

But ultimately, here’s the question. Do women want equality or protection? Men get death threats and harassment, and doxxing. Why is that different if you want EQUALITY.

I feel threatened on the internet, but I speak out anyway. Are you going to threaten, or act based on my words? If so, how are you better than anyone else who threatens or harasses?

If women are inferior delicate little flowers, and can’t possibly protect themselves without the help of a big strong men, where does it start and stop? Can these delicate little flowers write competent programs or do they need men to help and protect them there too? Can they decide on investments themselves or do they need men?

We also have a criminal justice system across the first world. WIKILEAKS JULIAN ASSANGE is either a horrible rapist pervert evil person, or the accusation is merely a ruse. Do you think Julian Assange is a rapist? He meets the wide but not narrow definition.

Both men and women are mistreated online.

“The treatment of women on the internet will remain a topic on OSNews until the problem is resolved, or the day I die – whichever comes first”.

So you absolutely don’t care about the treatment of any man on the internet? Even in identical circumstances.

It is the internet. I’ve not heard of “virtual rape”. Are all threats wrong, or only those against women? They just need to contact law enforcement. Men or women.

Those were men, and armed police were sent to break down their doors and shoot on sight – does this potentially fatal and successful threat not matter because it happened to be men at the receiving end?

completed or attempted forced penetration or alcohol- or drug-facilitated penetration

Sounds like a reasonable definition to me. Your first link appears to refer to sexual violence other than rape, for which women are still victimized at a 20% higher rate than men.

Regarding the rest of your post: it’s a distraction. This isn’t a contest to see who gets raped and abused more. The fact that men are also abused is tragic and unacceptable, but it’s no reason to ignore what’s in front of us now.

Are you a feminist Thom? I think it’s great when people label themselves feminists… it’s a much more manageable contraction of “ignorant, entitled, misandrist” – and yeah, I’ll fight misandrists until the day I die.

For me personally, the biggest issue with the whole rape/domestic abuse problem is that it seems like it is well on its way to becoming the next “woman’s” issue. By that I mean that most of the effort to draw attention to the issue is coming from woman.

Thing is its NOT a woman’s issue – it is a man’s issue. It is a father/son issue. Men who have kids, provide them with a good childhood and proper guidance, i.e “fathers”, don’t raise rapist and wife beaters. There are lots of statistics out there backing up the fact that most rapist and domestic abusers came from fatherless homes – but you can’t talk about this openly because you either get labeled as anti-feminist or a religious nut.

Im an atheist, so Im not a religious nut. In fact it bothers me to no end because most of the statistics I am talking about come from studies done by the religious right – so they are tainted by default. That doesn’t, however, mean they are wrong. Im also not anti-feminist, I just don’t think the idea that the best environment for raising kids consists of a combination of masculine and feminine viewpoints is anti-feminist – it is just self-evident.

So you end up with feminist trumpeting on about an issue that is best dealt with by the very people they profess to not need. The message is being heard, but the people who need to hear it don’t like the messengers…

Men need to make this their own issue. Men need to raise their kids right. Men need to identify those around us that might do things like this and intercede. I guarantee there is some guy they is going to read this that has a friend that beats his wife. It is your business – do something about it.

All Im saying is I want to help more, but it is hard to really get on board when I feel like I am being treated as the enemy…

That sounds really, really far-fetched. You’re saying that men who grow up without fathers grow up into rapists? Basically you’re saying women can’t raise children to not be rapists, then? I’m sorry, but at least I cannot believe such bull. I have not seen any sort of evidence whatsoever supporting a claim that women can’t raise sons or men can’t raise daughters.

That sounds really, really far-fetched. You’re saying that men who grow up without fathers grow up into rapists?

No, that is not what I said. I said that a statistically large percentage of rapists grew up in fatherless homes. Its not the same thing – you are saying I am creating a casual link, I am not – it is a circumstantial link. Drug abuse is statistically higher among medical professionals – that doesn’t mean that learning medicine causes drug abuse…

Of course a single mother can raise a child successfully, it happens all the time. So can a single father. But it isn’t ideal, and the absence of a kind and loving relationship to serve as an example to a child does impact them. And I don’t care about it being 2 men or 2 women either – statistically gay couples tend to raise wonderful children. The problem is single parent households…

Basically you’re saying women can’t raise children to not be rapists, then? I’m sorry, but at least I cannot believe such bull. I have not seen any sort of evidence whatsoever supporting a claim that women can’t raise sons or men can’t raise daughters.

Short version: feminism isn’t anti-men and “women’s issues” aren’t just for women; men should care about them, too. You make a similar point in your post; I just wanted to bring to your attention that you are agreeing with a visible feminist, despite stating in your post that you think you are disagreeing with feminists. (Of course, Emma Watson does not speak for everyone that self-identifies as a “feminist”, but her speech was lauded by many major feminist blogs/news outlets.)

(I do share WereCatf’s concerns about your data and would like to see references (EDIT: You posted a reference while I was writing this comment. Thank you.).)

You misunderstand… I did watch her speech. It is literally the first one I have ever seen that addresses what I am talking about – that was why I brought it up. This kind of message (i.e. that it is NOT only a woman’s issue) needs to be heard more, but when it comes from someone identified as “feminist” you are missing the critical audience – i.e. not-left-leaning-traditional-family-unit americans.

Men need to be part of the solution, the typical feminist rant on this issue makes them out to be the problem…

I apologize. Thanks for clarifying; I hadn’t realized how novel that was for visible feminist discourse.

The recently announced “It’s On Us” campaign from the White House also has feminist messaging directed toward men, but the “from the [Obama] White House” part fails your test of being something not-left-leaning Americans would actually listen to. I guess a workaround might be to have celebrity spokesmen (and I do mean men)?

Short version: feminism isn’t anti-men and “women’s issues” aren’t just for women; men should care about them, too. You make a similar point in your post; I just wanted to bring to your attention that you are agreeing with a visible feminist, despite stating in your post that you think you are disagreeing with feminists. (Of course, Emma Watson does not speak for everyone that self-identifies as a “feminist”, but her speech was lauded by many major feminist blogs/news outlets.)

Here’s the thing about feminism…

If someone came up to you and said, ‘Hey, I’m starting a new group that fights for racial equality. Do you want to join? And you say ‘Sure’. I mean, unless you’re a racist, who wouldn’t be for such a thing? But upon further investigation, you find out that the name of the group is called ‘Blackism’, and there’s a strong anti-white sentiment throughout its members.

Simply put, if feminism was indeed about promoting gender equality and not just female interests, there should be feminist thinkers who stood up and fought for issues like father’s custody in divorce, or paternity leave with at least half the fervor they fight for a woman’s right to completely abdicate responsibility for all of her actions the moment alcohol touches her lips.

Mind you, I’m not necessarily against feminism, but please stop with the ‘feminism is about gender equality’ bullshit. It is about womens’ rights specifically. Feminists are a special interest group like any other, and saying feminists fight for “gender equality” is like saying BP fights for environmental protection.

I would mod you up if I could… What you wrote is more or less exactly how I feel. I actually support most (if not all) feminist issues, but nearly every time I hear a feminist speak I feel like I have a target on my back…

Whether I believe that or not, I made no such claim; you are derailing. This discussion is unambiguously about making life better for women. Which has the side-effect of making life better for a lot of men, too, both because a lot of men care about the women they know and because gender essentialism is problematic for everyone who does not fit societal norms, woman or man (and other reasons, many of which Emma Watson mentioned in her speech).

(That said, Google will happily provide you with essays from feminists explaining why they use “feminist” to mean they are in favor of equality.)

(That said, Google will happily provide you with essays from feminists explaining why they use “feminist” to mean they are in favor of equality.)

I dislike the word “feminist” myself, I rather just use “humanist” or similar to denote the fact that I think men and women should be equal, both in the good and the bad. “Feminist” is a lot like an ugly swear word these days and it’s only made worse by those really loud, obnoxious people who are constantly proclaiming how men are inferior and women superior. “Humanist,” at least to my ear, sounds more neutral.

There are lots of statistics out there backing up the fact that most rapist and domestic abusers came from fatherless homes – but you can’t talk about this openly because you either get labeled as anti-feminist or a religious nut.

You can talk about this openly, but not while pretending there’s a direct causal relationship. “Fatherless” in this case means “single parent” (I don’t think you’ll find two-mother households in those stats), and “single parent” quite often means “poverty” and everything associated with it.

If there is anything in this world that gets my blood boiling its seeing women be mistreated.

I hate that we’ve made a world where women have to worry, on a regular basis, about being sexually assaulted! I hate that universities feel like they need to give out rape whistles to freshman girls. I hate that many of my closest friends have to carry pepper spray in their purses, simply because they are women.

I don’t have anything against men, I love men. I just wish there was something I could do to make my friends feel safe. I do what I can, and I, like Thom, will use all of the power and influence within my grasp to make the world better, or die trying.

Funny, I have been getting tired enough of the Verge’s constant drum-banging lately to consider dropping them. But that’s on top of their endless Ice Bucket updates, Banksy fixation, and horrible site design. (Their mobile site used to be a decent alternative for chronological reading, but they just killed it in favor of a unified redesign that loads dog-slow, uses more data, lags like hell, and can’t open tabs from the New Articles dropdown without also navigating the parent tab. Also, their RSS feed only holds 10 items.)

By comparison I don’t dislike OSNews, but it’s on life support as it is. I still visit for old times’ sake.

It goes both ways. Someone here apparently decided that I’m a “feminazi” or something simply because I commented in this article and got some friends along to spam my Steam-profile with various kinds of comments. I’m mostly just amused, these guys don’t seem to realize the irony in attacking someone who is against the feminist-thing due to her gender and therefore just reinforcing the whole feminist-thing themselves.

I’m mostly just amused, these guys don’t seem to realize the irony in attacking someone who is against the feminist-thing due to her gender and therefore just reinforcing the whole feminist-thing themselves.

Bingo!

There are two kinds of people in this world: authoritarians or freethinkers – you’ll find them in any subgroup.

The article Thom linked is like a bomb. It has so many hot topics and emotions mushed into one blurb that it turns even the OSnews comments into a babbling brook of incoherent head-banging.

And it’s all for naught. An emotional person’s opinion can’t be changed. They’re not really thinking. Different part of the brain and all. Most of the internet is the amateur keyboard warrior who hasn’t learned the lesson.

Reason and emotion just don’t mix. Sarcasm is a dead giveaway that you’re debating an emotional mind that can’t be changed. Drop these emotionally charged debates like they’re hot. In this case, say you agree that violence and threats are bad, and move on.

I guess we should be glad that the modern internet is so fair that angry boys aren’t the only ones driving comment holocausts.

every stereotype of the geek seems to be exposed and magnified a hundred fold

Is that the right way to approach an article that is complaining about prejudice? If people don’t fully agree with your point, should you use it as a chance to amplify and give credence to your own bigotry?

I’m not seeing a huge number of comments that are supporting harassment, mostly Internet-weary people pointing to it as being a broader problem than only women being harassed, or others who are generally unsure how to solve it.

Thom, usually I prefer when you stick to reporting facts and OS related news stories. I typically do not welcome your sarcasm, personal asides and such. However, this time I find myself in full agreement with you. Women face a great deal of violence and personal attacks in this world, on-line and off. It is a serious problem which needs to be addressed and I applaud your efforts to educate people on the problems women face.

Thom, usually I prefer when you stick to reporting facts and OS related news stories. I typically do not welcome your sarcasm, personal asides and such. However, this time I find myself in full agreement with you. Women face a great deal of violence and personal attacks in this world, on-line and off.

It’s also a fact that women are the most physically violent part in western relationsships, it’s just underreported.

I can tell you, without reservation, that this female-centric view of violence or intimidation is the result of a false and unsupportable division of attention.

Men are documented as being victims of assaults by women in 40% of all domestic violence cases. The reality is that the number is likely far higher due to male refusal to admit being abused by women.

On the internet, I have seen not a single case of female abuse… and I’ve been deep in the internet since its inception – back when the internet was effectively just a series of live fax connections connected to computers running 808x CPUs and 640KB of RAM was aking to having 128GB today… and hard drives were a luxury… and floppies were 8″, not 5.25… or the not-so-floppy 3.5.

Celebrity always draws in the crazies – and that’s true regardless of the celebrity – or their gender – or their race.

The rape statistic given is appalling, of course, however it’s also a lie:

“In a 2000 research article from the Home Office, in England and Wales, around 1 in 20 women (5%) said that they had been raped at some point in their life from the age of 16 beyond.[6]

In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control found that “nearly 20% of all women” in the United States suffered rape or attempted rape sometime in their life. More than a third of the victims were raped before the age of 18.[7]”

(Source: WikiPedia – ‘cuz I’m lazy)

It is not 1 in 5, but 1 in 20 (still bad, but I digress). The CDC figure is far more inclusive, including all “attempted rapes.” What one woman considers and “attempted rape” the majority may consider simple pleading for sex with some physical contact (the way movies and culture have trained men is the way to get a woman into bed…).

While I’m certainly not against protecting women (or anyone else) from violent acts against them, I am certainly against the lies and distortions used to make something appear worse than it really is. Militant feminists are known for these tactics (and worse) due to their own personal issues with men and should not be encouraged, but discouraged, by truth-seeking.

My father was abused by numerous women. I was abused by some of these same women (as a child). Only once did the police arrest the woman when they arrived. Each time, they arrested my father – even though they had no charges to file (which was ALWAYS the case). That is a double standard bred by these lies.

Women are violent. Men are violent. Women abuse men. Men abuse women. Women abuse women. Men abuse men. That’s the human species – a result of evolution. You can fight it, or you can adapt, but whatever you do you have to do it with the true knowledge of what is really happening, otherwise you will simply empower one side over the other, and the abuse will simply increase in one direction.

Men are documented as being victims of assaults by women in 40% of all domestic violence cases. The reality is that the number is likely far higher due to male refusal to admit being abused by women.

Movies and games and TV-shows and whatnot tend to try to instill the idea in people that it’s somehow okay and alright for a woman to smack a man in the face if the woman for whatever reason happens to feel like, and then quite often the man who got smacked is ridiculed for it, too. It’s… disgusting. Even worse is the ages-old idea that men should not be allowed to show weakness of any kind in any situation and should just weather it, whatever it is.

I would like something to be done about it, but.. what? How?

On the internet, I have seen not a single case of female abuse…

Um, do you mean female being abused or the female person being the one doing the abusing?

“In a 2000 research article from the Home Office, in England and Wales, around 1 in 20 women (5%) said that they had been raped at some point in their life from the age of 16 beyond.[6]

In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control found that “nearly 20% of all women” in the United States suffered rape or attempted rape sometime in their life. More than a third of the victims were raped before the age of 18.[7]”

I don’t think it’s a lie. Do you notice that the one tracks females from 16+, whereas the other seems to track all ages? I don’t know if the numbers are accurate or not, but it seems to me that they don’t exactly track the same things.

I don’t think it’s a lie. Do you notice that the one tracks females from 16+, whereas the other seems to track all ages? I don’t know if the numbers are accurate or not, but it seems to me that they don’t exactly track the same things.

Also, these figures can differ from one country to another (though I wouldn’t expect them to differ so dramatically if they are corrected for age etc.).

Women are violent. Men are violent. Women abuse men. Men abuse women. Women abuse women. Men abuse men. That’s the human species – a result of evolution. You can fight it, or you can adapt, but whatever you do you have to do it with the true knowledge of what is really happening, otherwise you will simply empower one side over the other, and the abuse will simply increase in one direction.

Mistreatment of others has been with us since the dawn of humanity. It’s not something that’s exclusive to humans either. We observe rape, domestic violence, male->female and female->male abuse for example in other species as well. There’s something about evolution that triggers that kind of behavior. That’s an entirely different conversation for another day, thread, or forum however.

I do believe humans have the capacity to move beyond this stuff but based on how poorly we treat each other on a world wide scale, how poorly we treat other animals, and how poorly we treat nature, I doubt I’ll see any significant change in my lifetime. I suppose the first step in evolving past our darkest behaviors is truly wanting to. How do we decide as a whole species that exerting control and power over one another is no longer acceptable when everywhere I look I see evidence that the root problems are only getting worse.

Well, Thom, I think there is some hypocrysy from your part (and not only you), because when the U.K. goverment blocked pornography as default because it represent women as just a piece of meat and gave the wrong idea to teenagers of what a woman really is, you and many more complained.

Well, Thom, I think there is some hypocrysy from your part (and not only you), because when the U.K. goverment blocked pornography as default because it represent women as just a piece of meat and gave the wrong idea to teenagers of what a woman really is, you and many more complained.

Women needs to stop being sexualized in media to begin.

I agree that Thom is hypocritical, especially in his support for pearl-clutching feminists like Anita Sarkesian. It’s something I find very common among progressives: they’ll fight against censorship and puritanical scaremongering from conservative men, but support almost identical arguments and policies when they come from feminist women, or others who align with them politically. It’s tribalism rather than a rational response.

But that doesn’t mean that either feminists or conservatives have a solid argument when it comes to their “sexualisation” moral panic. It doesn’t mean that any of their claims about pornography causing rape and violence against women are backed up by compelling evidence.

In reality, both feminists and conservatives have failed miserably to prove any clear link between pornography and violence. If anything, there’s a correlation between access to pornography (and sexual liberalism in general) and a reduction in sexual violence. There’s certainly nothing to justify the blanked censorship and criminalisation demanded by many feminists and religious conservatives.

Until there’s better evidence for these claims than feminist and religious dogma, there’s no contradiction between supporting equality and opposing censorship of sexual imagery.

I certaintly wasn’t claiming that pornography is the root of rape (it may contribute indirectly) or other things, but is part of the cause of the de-humanation of women, labels like, “bitch”, “cum-bucket”, ” f–k toy” that are common in pornography are an offence to their dignity, and other pornography web sites whom only reason of existence is to humilliate teenagers in castings, lets not kid our selves, it does affect the image of women in the brains of the young populalion.

Thom would be a hypocrite if he engaged in the type of behaviour he condemns. I don’t think that’s the case, right?

In my view there is an element of hypocrisy in his condemnation of the Conservative anti-porn agenda, followed by support for feminists who engage in similarly biased scaremongering.

You mean the kind of feminists that actually show, through many examples, that there’s a lot wrong with modern day video games with regards to their presentation of women? Right.

Any propagandist with an axe to grind can cherry pick examples to push their agenda. Sarkesian doesn’t even do a competent job of it, as many of her examples are blatantly manipulated or out of context.

Her claim that there’s a direct connection between video game violence and violence in the real world is particularly poorly supported by evidence. It’s the kind of emotional scare tactic I’ve seen roundly mocked when made by the right-wing “family values” crowd, but somehow it’s misogynistic not to take it seriously when it comes from a feminist.

That’s a strawman. This may have been voiced once by 70s feminists, but that’s not the current narrative. Did you even read the article?

It’s not a response to the article, it’s a response to a comment about the UK government’s porn filter.

Britain’s mainstream feminist reaction to the government’s plan was to condemn it for not going far enough. Many were angry that it merely filtered, when they wanted outright criminalisation; i.e. an extension of the ban on possessing “extreme porn” (google the prosecution of Simon Walsh) to cover all pornography.

The claim that porn directly causes rape and violence against women was used by many of those feminists to support their demands for censorship, and is still used in their campaigning today. This is something directly argued by many current feminist academics and activists, e.g. Gail Dines (someone Sarkesian has linked to and recommended).

In fact, far from being a strawman, or a throwback to the 70s, it’s an argument that’s predictably rolled out whenever puritanical feminists want to whip up some moral panic. For example, feminists trying to close down the sex shops and strip clubs where I live blamed them for rapes in the area, and used that to condemn critics as pro-rape misogynists. There’s no actual evidence for their claims (in reality the rate of sexual assault had dropped), but then zealots, whether feminist or religious, have never cared much about reality.

In my view there is an element of hypocrisy in his condemnation of the Conservative anti-porn agenda, followed by support for feminists who engage in similarly biased scaremongering.

Yet you again don’t explain why this is “hypocrisy”. Again, “hypocrisy” means doing something you condemn publicly. But that’s not the case here.

Any propagandist with an axe to grind can cherry pick examples to push their agenda. Sarkesian doesn’t even do a competent job of it, as many of her examples are blatantly manipulated or out of context.

Sure they can. However, given that Sarkeesian has presented more than a few cherries (she’s given dozens of examples), and given that those opposing here haven’t shown a single rebuttal (by which I mean an equally thorough examination of all the positively pictured women in games), and given that those opposing her have never actually shown which of those “many examples” are “blatently manipulated” and how and why, I’m not giving too much credit to your statement here.

Her claim that there’s a direct connection between video game violence and violence in the real world is particularly poorly supported by evidence.

Afaik, her claim goes the other way, i.e. that the real world violence and sexism is reflected in games. I haven’t heard her claim that games actually cause real-world violence. If she would, I’d ask for evidence. However, regardless of what she claims, her many examples show that there’s a lot of very women-unfriendly material in video games.

It’s not a response to the article, it’s a response to a comment about the UK government’s porn filter.

Since this discussion is about Thom’s post, not about dubious UK poltics, I won’t comment other than that I condemn porn filters, and I’m convinced that porn does not cause real-world violence (again, I think, the causation goes the other way: those prone to real-world violence are more likely to watch violent porn).

Afaik, her claim goes the other way, i.e. that the real world violence and sexism is reflected in games. I haven’t heard her claim that games actually cause real-world violence. If she would, I’d ask for evidence.

From what I listened to Tropes vs Women it sure sounded like it was games affecting people. Maybe not directly in the sense of game = violence, but very close.

Studies have found for example that after having viewed sexually objectified female bodies, men in particular tend to view women as less intelligent, less competent and disturbingly express less concern for their physical well-being or safety. Furthermore this perception is not limited only to sexualised women. In what’s called the ‘spillover effect’ these sexist attitudes carry over to perceptions of all women as a group, regardless of their attire, activities, or professions.

Researchers have also found that after long term exposure to hypersexualised images, people of all genders tend to be more tolerant of the sexual harassment of women, and readily accept rape myths, including the belief that sexually assaulted women were asking for it, deserved it, or are the ones to blame for being victimised. In other words, viewing media that frames women as objects or sexual playthings profoundly impacts how real life women are perceived or treated in the world around us. And that is all without even taking into account how videogames allow for a more participatory form of objectification that we’ve been discussing in this episode.

Compounding this problem is the widespread belief that despite all the evidence exposure to media has no real world impact. While it may be comforting to think that we all have a personal forcefield protecting us from outside influences this is simply not the case. Scholars sometimes refer to this type of denial as the ‘third-person effect’, which is the tendency for people to believe that they’re personally immune to medias effects, even if others may be influenced or manipulated.

Paradoxically, and somewhat ironically, those who most strongly belief that media’s just harmless entertainment are also the ones most likely to uncritically internalise harmful media messages. In short, the more you think you can not be affected, the more likely you are to be affected.

Basically if you disagree with her, you’re one of those already exceptionally easily influenced by media.

Look I don’t doubt that propaganda or other efforts to use the media to influence people works to a greater or less extent. I more disagree with the broader way this is being treated, that the depiction of NPCs for women is somehow worse than the disregard for life of random male or female pedestrians in GTA, or that it’s necessarily a topic that is a more urgent discussion than say the glorifying of the US war machine in a game like CoD.

Yet you again don’t explain why this is “hypocrisy”. Again, “hypocrisy” means doing something you condemn publicly. But that’s not the case here.

My dictionary defines hypocrisy as: “The practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case”.

But I’m really not in the mood to play silly semantic games.

Sure they can. However, given that Sarkeesian has presented more than a few cherries (she’s given dozens of examples), and given that those opposing here haven’t shown a single rebuttal

In other words, you haven’t bothered to do any research into the subject. Otherwise you’d have encountered plenty of detailed rebuttals of her propaganda pieces.

Her blatant misrepresentation of the game Hitman Absolution alone would make it hard for me to take her seriously. Here’s how she describes the game:

“Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”

She cherry picks from a sandbox game that allows you to attack pretty much any character, presenting the optional violence against women as an inevitability, despite the fact that the game actually penalises you for it. To that false claim, Sarkeesian adds warped scaremongering about the game actually being designed to sexually arouse players through that violence. This is as laughable as anything I’ve seen from the religious right.

Afaik, her claim goes the other way, i.e. that the real world violence and sexism is reflected in games. I haven’t heard her claim that games actually cause real-world violence.

You clearly haven’t looked at what she’s actually saying. She directly states that games “profoundly impact how real life women are perceived and treated in the world around us”, and goes on to argue that “the more you think you can’t be affected, the more likely you are to be affected”.

It’s just a load of scaremongering and moral panic, whether it comes from progressive feminists or conservative Christians.

Just an update on this issue. Apparently the threats against Emma were a hoax by a fake PR firm masquerading as 4chan. Probably still damaging to Emma, but at least it didn’t result in nude pics of her being leaked.

Congratulations, you’ve succeeded in getting me to remove OSNews from my bookmarks. Anyone who takes the mass hysteria of “rape culture” and claims like “One in five U.S. women has been raped in her lifetime” at face value is obviously too deluded to be trusted with anything that requires actual thinking.

Also conviniently ignoring that in many developed countries males faces serious domestic abuse from females more often than the other way around, the utter absurdity of divorce and alinomy laws that greatly favor females over males, etc etc…

The claim that 1 in 5 american women have been raped during their lifetime has been debunked more than once, similar to how the high rape rate in Sweden has been debunked (defining consent as rape will obviously increase the rape rate). “Feminists” rely heavily on urban legends and falsified data to push their agenda, usually at the detriment for women and other people suffering under the existing institutional constructs.

The claim that 1 in 5 american women have been raped during their lifetime has been debunked more than once

Ok, so when is rape still outrageous? 1 in 10? 1 in 20? And we needn’t even talk about rape. The oft mentioned Anita Sarkeesian doesn’t talk about (real life) rape. She talks about violence against female NPC in video games. And we can all read Twitter or Facebook or Reddit to be exposed to vile misogyny. The article Thom mentions is about the unwelcoming atmosphere (and that’s a eufemism) for women in tech and the internet at large. By focussing on rape percentages you are divirting the attention from the real issue: the very bad treatment of women.

When data is gathered and analysed by non agenda driven and non ideologically loaded highly regarded (female) researchers (such as Christina Hoff Sommers), what is the answer to the question posed in the topic of this thread? Watch it and you’ll find out.

Based on his past articles, Thom Holwerda might want to watch this to learn the truth. Thom should accept that reality is not what the fanatics and their propaganda sites argue about. RPS, Kotaku, Ars Technica, Polygon, etc. have all been caught their pants on fire in still on-going #GamerGate scandal.

These sites have writers who feed ideologically driven BS to people in the name of the “feminism” that makes actual feminists and their important matter lose its meaning.

Christina Hoff Sommer’s is a hell of a lot more educated and reputable than Anita Sarkeesian. Sommer’s Ph.D. in philosophy was achieved before Miss Sarkeesian was even born. She has actually studied and written on women in STEM for several decades now. Sarkeesian lied about being a gamer.

Her facts are solid and check out as valid. That’s why she is controversial with most gender feminist. Sommer is an equity feminist and shoots down the myths and bullshit of the former.

And let’s correct another fact failure; she is not a neo-con. In fact, she is actually a registered Democrat and liberal.